


A Good Observer

by Yurik (KarlaZeit)



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 05:49:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarlaZeit/pseuds/Yurik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘You can’t live for ever. You just can’t.’ Mrs. Wilson kept saying this, over and over, till a melancholy fragrance of bourbon blocked her lips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Observer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fialta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialta/gifts).



> Book & film version, immature.

Through a heavy-hearted haze of tears Myrtle saw Jordan, the slender lady stretching wanly in a rich-cream-colored car, beside which stood Tom, who was looking up with anxiety. George Wilson’s fair hair glittered across the labyrinth of gaze as he glared at the tube spilling gasoline under the sunlight. Perceiving the jealousy jetted from the imprisoned upstairs, Jordan fixed her eyes on Myrtle. On her shoulders hovered a struggling sorrow, same as her first glimpse upon her. Jordan let free a silent sigh. _Let it be_.

On their way into town Jordan began to wonder whether Myrtle had found out about the discreet affair between her spouse and the hulking polo player. Everyone knew, she thought. A subtle hint on Tom’s face revealed it all. Those rippling, confidential relationships never bothered Jordan. She always played her role perfectly, an observer, as adroit as Nick Carraway next to her, contemplating and reserving all judgments, ready to get away from all the fuss and fury. They would have narrowly escaped from the Plaza Hotel had Tom and Gatsby not insisted firmly that they stay. Finally they remained to face the shattered shining shell once covered Jay Gatsby. From him faded away a languished fantasy of Daisy’s: a pretty girl surrounded by bright dresses. Jordan jumped to her feet as soon as the last strand of Daisy’s dark hair dissolved in the hallway, as if she had woken up from a nightmarish paralysis. With the elegance of a golfer she sailed out, leaving the two Yale men alone murmuring languidly _today’s my birthday_ and _happy birthday_  to the void between them.

Passing through the rotating glass door, Daisy and Gatsby wordlessly approached the big car, when Jordan emerged with something invisible balanced on her chin. A couple of reflections of her figure were mirrored on the many layers of glass wind-shields.

‘Shall we?’ demanded Jordan, pointing at the driver’s seat, ‘I suppose neither of you is in a good mood.’

‘Thank you, Miss Baker, with sincerity.’ Gatsby passed her the key and sat down with Daisy, both startled.

They drove on, towards the valley of ashes through the cooling twilight.

Hollowed-eyed and with a leather dog-leash in hand, George Wilson gazed at the eyes of T. J. Eckleburg outside his garage. Watching the cream-colored car pass by, he stood up screaming out desperately.

‘Mr. Buchanan! Mr. ...’ He was interrupted by a bang. Myrtle had smashed the screw bolt and ran out:

‘Tom! Stop, Tom!’

Jordan hit the brake and stopped a nanometer from the roaring Wilsons. Just in time.

‘So you are Daisy? Where’s Tom?’ Myrtle stared at Jordan, whom she’d seen beside Tom several hours earlier.

‘Tom? What Tom?’ asked Daisy innocently, trembling faintly with her low voice.

‘Sorry there’s no Tom.’ Jordan started the car in hope of keeping away from the fuss. She might have escaped if Myrtle hadn’t blocked the road ahead.

‘Let me tell you, Daisy, Daisy, Daisy,’ hummed Mrs. Wilson. A queer vitality seemed to make her glow. ‘Tom never loved you, not even in the first months he married you; you beautiful little foul.’

That was exactly what Gatsby wanted to hear from Tom, thought Jordan while Gatsby jumped out pulling Myrtle aside.

‘I’ll deal with it, you two back to Long Island,’ insisted Gatsby. The anxiety in his eyes mingled with an interrogative murmur from Daisy struck Jordan. (‘Who on earth is she, Jordan? She’s insane, isn’t she?’) She pressed on the accelerator, leaving the row far behind.

‘Am I prepared to leave Tom, Jordan?’ Daisy tilted her head towards the thousands of layers as they passed by a trail of ashes. ‘Then I’ll have nothing left, not even Pammy. Poor little girl! All mirages turned into terrible mistakes. The longest day of this year, I’ve missed it again! Even the summer came to its end.’

Her voice sounded less gay, less exciting, noticed Jordan.

‘Stay for Pammy, or leave for a wilder summer’s day? Why Jordan, why can’t we repeat our precious past?’ Her questions echoed under a darkening sky as Jordan drove along the lane with no response, judgment or a single word.

They slept early that night, the two young ladies, fitfully. When awaked by a quarrel across the blue lawn, Jordan went downstairs to find four figures outside standing still in the shadow of gloomy, blooming tuberose. The tranquility did not last long. George Wilson let out a sob in the dark, tears streaming down his face which no one saw clearly but Tom, the one nearest him, stretching his arm farther to caress the fair face.

‘All right, Wilson, drive my coupé home. It’s yours. Now get back and keep your mouth closed.’

‘Mr. Buchanan, frankly it’s not my idea to get away. Got no choice,’ Wilson wept, his whisper a mild wind, ‘I’m just a nobody.’ With these gloomy words he turned to leave.

‘Nonsense!’ shouted Tom behind him. ‘You’re worth the whole Long Island Eggs put together.’

He had told him that he loved him and everyone saw. So did his sleepy lazy Daisy standing on the stairs beside Jordan. She stared at the crowd beneath her, as if she had just recognized the whole thing unfolded beneath her eyees a long time ago.

‘I must be dreaming. We need more sleep. Come on, Jordan.’ She took a step forward and fainted and fell down. Two men ran upstairs together. One of them took Daisy in his arms.

‘I’ll protect her. No worries, old sport.’ By these words Jordan figured out the one in pink suit (gray in a summer’s night). The other one was probably the best observer she had ever known, a detached conspirator. Birds of a feather, aren’t they.

‘Where’s Tom?’

‘He’s gone. Mr. Wilson’s too nervous to drive alone,’ said Nick the Observer.

At daybreak Myrtle’s call arrived: Tom, together with his fair garage man, had run into the eyes of T. J. Eckleburg in the blue coupé, a token of love.

‘He’s dead, Jim.’ Nick turned around; his eyes met Gatsby’s, receiver in hand. ‘He lost control of his car while drifting around the corner, flying too high to make a soft landing.’

‘Who’s dead? Is Tom dead?’ asked Daisy faintly but firmly. Her voice echoed a charismatic chanson. ‘I’m glad he’s dead, poor arrogant man, never acted like an elegant gentleman.’ Daisy walked straight into her room from which a shattered symphony was to start.

‘Mrs. Wilson, is everything all right, Mrs. Wilson? Oh wait… She fell silent after a bang. I suppose we need to go and have a look.’ suggested Nick. ‘Does anyone…?’

‘Well, I’m available.’ A slim silhouette stood out. It was Jordan.

‘Take my car then.’ Gatsby, paralyzed in the canapé, woke with a start. His key was once again laid in the palm of Jordan.

At the edge of the valley of ashes, Jordan pulled over, handed a handful of coins to the grocer. With a bottle in the co-pilot seat, the cream-colored car ran into the waste land through the impenetrable ash-gray smoky air. Myrtle waited on a bench at the end of the road, a leashed police dog on her laps. She was caressing the amber tip of its furs when Jordan braked and walked towards her.

‘You can’t live for ever. You just can’t.’ Mrs. Wilson kept saying this, over and over, till a melancholy fragrance of bourbon blocked her lips. She was never a brave one, who would drink life to the lees; she was just an angry woman, not strong enough to scrape everything off her mind. People like Jordan would never ever understand her irritation, lodged behind her teeth aching to get out and one day, silently vanish into ashes. Born in the valley, she was doomed to die there, under Doctor Eckleburg’s persistent stare. Jordan knew it all, from the very beginning of their encounter. Settling the bottle beside Myrtle, Jordan turned away without a backward glance.

‘Daisy Buchanan, please…’ A whisper from Myrtle strummed invisible strings between them, and Jordan turned back, and everything was changing in front of her eyes. The ashes around the bench took the form of a spotted dress of dark blue crêpe-de-chine, a couple of stars shining at the top of this approaching shade, calling the name Daisy.

‘Please take me to town, Mrs. Buchanan, to the hospital where your husband and mine are lying, if you please.’ Smiling slowly, Myrtle walked through Jordan towards the motor road.

‘I prefer not, Mrs. Wilson. You see, I’m Jordan Baker, not married yet,’ she stated, ‘and I’m afraid I was not coming to meet the dead,’ but you, thought Jordan.

‘But you’ve got the car, Tom’s car?’

‘Not his car. It belongs to a man called Gatsby, whom you’ve met the evening before.’

‘You will not drive me to town, Miss Baker?’ Her coarse murmur was not like that of Daisy’s, which made people lean towards it. Jordan shook her head, not _today_ , not _alone_ with you.

‘No. I’m sorry I must go. Someone’s waiting for me,’ which was, perhaps, a lie.

‘I don’t want to be alone in a crowded carriage to New York.’

‘Then stay on your bench! For Heaven’s sake, stop flirting with me in this infuriating way!’ Hidden behind the labyrinth of wind-shields, Jordan felt she’d had enough of all of them for one day and another. The whole damn bunch made her sick. Her foot on the accelerator, her eyes met those of T. J. Eckleburg, and her sympathy vaporized in the gloomy air.

‘Hold your temper, Miss Baker. Why were you coming to meet me, if you do not want to stay?’ her breathing was a blast of alcohol floating over the glass, ‘I don’t believe a bottle of bourbon’s worth the cost of gasoline.’

Jordan fell silent, passively refusing to participate in this conversation.

‘I mean I owe you a favor, Miss Baker,’ Myrtle the Mechanic unscrewed the cap of the yellow tank in no time, ‘Let’s have, young lady, some gas.’ She wet her lips, strained at the handle sternly, tuning out the whining Jordan.

‘I still won’t drive you to New York,’ concluded Jordan.

‘Why, I won’t let you go anywhere else, even if you insist,’ said Myrtle innocently.

Truly she had no intention to insist, since the mistress of the garage had played her tricks and she would never start her car again without her amiable help. That explained why Gatsby found his car outside the hospital while he got off Meyer Wolfsheim’s tank with Daisy in his arms and Nick Carraway by his side. They walked in, hearing the stable breathing of Tom and George (a pair of mummies) traverse lively the tomblike tranquility. Their attending physician, dressed like a chief medical officer, exiled the three guests politely.

‘Doctor, have you seen a pretty lady, her hair the color of an autumn leaf? She came alone in a big yellow car,’ described Nick, ‘Oh I see. I’ve spotted her. Hello, Mrs. Wilson.’

‘Hello, Nick,’ replied Jordan behind a deaf-and-dumb Myrtle, both looking around the sick room, which was too small to contain all five. So Jordan waited in the hallway thinking of a coming tournament as well as a past one, the elves of boredom palpitating around her wrist.

_Why can’t we repeat the past?_

The past has passed. That’s why we have to go up, looking forward to many a variation in f minor or A Major during the next movement. And just like that, unconsciously we return to square one, borne back ceaselessly into the Leitmotiv in life. For Daisy, this recurring theme is to make up and give up; for Jordan and Nick to observe; for George to survive; for Gatsby to seek and strive; for Tom to love; for Myrtle…well, Jordan had no idea. She barely knew her.

That was why she went to see her. A mysterious mist covered her slightly sorrowful silhouette, which caused an extreme row inside Jordan. She had no idea how lovers cared for each other. She was detached from any affection or affair, with a dispassion inseparable from the humble part of her nature. Keeping a safe distance from the crowd, she enjoyed the privilege of being a good observer. So _let be_. After all, it was none of her business. She turned away, tuning Myrtle out of her mind.

So she smiled sorrowly, watching her melt into the crowd of New York City.

 

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Sep 7-12, 2013: What a valley of garbage.
> 
> Sep 13-21, 2013: Here we get some renewable resource!
> 
> Thanks for the beta work, dear Minnow.


End file.
